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In this April 12, 2017 photo provided by the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens, Fiona a prematurely born hippopotamus, swims in her quarantine enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens in Cincinnati. — AP photos
Premature hippo a happy hit
for Ohio zoo after Harambe
A
Fiona a prematurely born hippopotamus, rests in her quarantine enclosure at the
Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens.
Bibi, a pregnant Nile hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens, roams her Hippo
Cove exhibit enclosure.
Visitors read a sign depicting Fiona, the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens' new baby
hippopotamus, as they pass through the Hippo Cove exhibit.
prematurely born hippo in Ohio has been
providing regular doses of happiness for
animal lovers, in a show of public affection that's also given an emotional lift to
Cincinnati Zoo workers. After months of backlash over the zoo's fatal shooting of Harambe, a
gorilla who became a pop culture phenomenon
in death, baby Fiona is the new center of attention there. "She has brought everyone together,"
said Jenna Wingate, one of Fiona's caregivers. "It
brings us to tears sometimes."
Blog and video updates such as Fiona taking
a bottle, splashing in a pool or learning to run
have drawn tens of millions of online views. Tens
of thousands of people have bought Team Fiona
T-shirts, and thousands more have eaten a
Cincinnati bakery chain's Fiona-themed treats,
with proceeds supporting the zoo's efforts. She
gets so many cards and letters that she has her
own mail bin.
Lots of excitement
On a recent sunny afternoon at the zoo, Gina
Brockman, of Taylor Mill, Kentucky, got her children in place for a photo near the hippopotamus
area and just before snapping it, said: "Say
Fiona!" "They can't wait to see her," Brockman
said. "I think she has brought everybody lots of
excitement." Zoo officials say zoos are increasingly using newer media to interest the public, such
as the recent livestream of April the giraffe giving
birth in New York's Animal Adventure Park.
Zoos "are utilizing new ways to give the public a firsthand account of caring for the animals
at their facilities," said Rob Vernon, spokesman
for the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, based
in Silver Spring, Maryland. "Fiona is a great
example of using social and traditional media to
tell her story." Some animal rights activists are
skeptical. "Basically, it's a marketing tool," said
Michael Budkie, who leads the Cincinnati-area
group Stop Animal Exploitation Now! "They
focus so much attention on baby animals
because people like to see them. What happens
to these animals when they're grown?"
Budkie, who said animals should be in natural
habitats, not "gawked at by human beings," was
among many who criticized the zoo after the
May 28, 2016, shooting of Harambe by a zoo
special response team to protect a 3-year-old
boy who fell into the gorilla enclosure's moat.
Harambe's death was mourned and satirized in a
social media response that swept the globe. The
Cincinnati Zoo shut down its Twitter account for
two months last year after hacks and waves of
negative comments.
Year of Harambe
The strong positive response to Fiona has
helped what the zoo's director has described as
a healing process after Harambe. "It's been a
very welcome thing," Wingate said. But there
hippo warm and moist, and getting her into the
pool as much as possible. Some of the early
updates were about setbacks; one day she wasn't gaining weight, another she wouldn't take
the bottle.
Zoo spokeswoman Michelle Curley said the
policy is to be transparent, sharing bad news as
well as good. "You'd have these awesome days
with her then you have a couple bad days,"
In this Wednesday, Jan 11, 2017, file photo, Bibi, a pregnant Nile hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo &
Botanical Gardens, reaches for lettuce leaves in her Hippo Cove exhibit enclosure.
was no guarantee that Fiona's story would be a
happy one. Born Jan 24, six weeks early, the calf
was 29 pounds, well below the normal birth
weight of 55 pounds to 120 pounds. The first
Nile hippo born there in 75 years was unable to
stand or to nurse, so zookeepers, vets and volunteers began raising her with 24-hour attention.
"We weren't expecting this premature hippo to
survive," said Wingate.
She got advice from the Thula Thula Rhino
Orphanage in South Africa, which raises baby
rhinos whose mothers are killed by poachers.
Wingate said they advised keeping the baby
Wingate said. "You try to keep yourself guarded.
But she's doing well now. Something could still
happen, but we're not as stressed now." The zoo
workers have been increasing Fiona's contact
with her parents, and they plan to slowly get her
ready for in-person viewing by her fans. That
likely will come in May, around the time of the
one-year anniversary of Harambe's death.
"We've had the spotlight on us for almost a year,"
Curley said. "It's nice for it to be for positive reasons now." — AP